Spirit
by SuperMegaFoxyAwesomeHot
Summary: Ficlet: It's Independence Day, and Kurt's donned his red, white, and blue. Blaine, however, has gone a bit more festive. Can he convince Kurt to do the same?


**I saw a flag bow tie on BuzzFeed and headcanoned and then this happened. Oops.**

* * *

It wasn't that Kurt didn't like holidays. In fact, Kurt _loved _holidays – they usually meant spending time with loved ones and eating a lot of junk food, and Kurt was a big fan of both of those things.

What Kurt didn't like was tacky holiday-themed outfits.

He conceded to wearing Fair Isle prints and maybe coordinating red and green around Christmas, enjoyed donning pink on Valentine's Day, and gamely figured out a way to incorporate orange on Halloween, but by no means would he wear anything with Santa, Cupid, or some oddly-shaped jack o'lantern. Maybe some people had low standards and no self-respect, but Kurt was not one of them.

His fiance, however, was.

It was their first Fourth of July together in NYC, and they planned on hitting a parade somewhere before just exploring for the day, knowing they'd be surrounded by tourists but figuring they could deal with it for one day. It wasn't like they didn't deal with some level of tourists on a normal day, anyways, especially since Kurt worked in food service.

"B? Did you drown in there?" Kurt called from the living room, checking the time on his phone. If they wanted even a prayer of actually _seeing _the nearest parade, they had to hit the streets soon. "Crap, did you accidentally gel your eyes shut again?"

"Hey, you provoked me into that," Blaine yelled back. "But no, I didn't blind myself. I just had to perfect my look!"

"Perfect your- no," Kurt said, instantly understanding Blaine's comment once he appeared from behind the curtain. "I did not approve this!"

"What?" Blaine asked, spinning around and showing off his outfit. "It's festive!"

"It's _awful_," Kurt responded, unable to keep a look of horror off his face. Blaine was wearing a red and white gingham shirt, blue pants, and a white belt, but the real kickers were his American flag bow tie and sequined Uncle Sam top hat. He'd even painted "USA!" on his cheeks with patriotic face paint. "That stuff's going to ruin your pores."

"It's noncomedogenic, I checked the packaging!" Blaine said, practically chirping. "I also got enough for you!"

"Why in the _world _would I want to wreck my carefully chosen outfit by adding tacky, childish face paint to it?" Kurt asked. "Do you know how long it took me to plan an outfit that was both patriotic and flattering?" He gestured to his own get-up, close-fitting white skinny jeans with a pale red shirt and a blue and red starred neckerchief.

"You look great, Kurt, you always do," Blaine said. "Really. But..."

"But?" Kurt parroted, ice cold.

"But it's a little basic, don't you think?" Blaine asked, cringing back slightly. "I mean, I think with the face paint, you'd look more...whimsical. Fun-loving."

"Or maybe I'd be acne-riddled and sloppy once it melts off from the heat."

"You couldn't be acne-riddled if you tried, babe," Blaine said. "But I'll make you a deal."

"I'm listening," Kurt said, intrigued despite himself.

"If you let me paint a set of red, white, and blue stars on at least one of your cheeks," Blaine began, taking a deep breath in the middle of his sentence to steel himself. "Then I will wash all of the gel out of my hair the second we get home and let you fluff it to your heart's content while we catch up on _Love It or List It._"

"Done," Kurt said immediately. "That came out faster than I wanted."

"I know how to bribe you, sweetheart," Blaine said, smiling widely. "Now come into my lair so I can doll you up real pretty."

"If you try to give an evil laugh while you paint my face, I'm making you sleep on the couch tonight," Kurt warned, following Blaine and plopping onto the edge of the bathroom sink.

"No fun," Blaine mock-pouted. "See, this is why you need face paint."

"One of us has to be the mature one, Blaine," Kurt sniffed, though he couldn't hold back a smile.

"Says the man who made me kill the moth that got in last week while he cowered in bed with the covers over his face."

"I didn't say we couldn't switch off," Kurt pointed out.

"Fair enough. Now hush or I'm going to smudge you, and then you really will look childish."

Kurt shut up obligingly, unwilling to have smeared face paint before they even left the apartment. If he smiled after catching a glimpse of Blaine's cute nested-star design in the mirror on the way out, he didn't let Blaine see. He had _some _pride, after all.


End file.
